Health Care Reform:

Health Insurance & Affordable Care Act

PhRMA, Advocates: Specialty Drug Costs Too High

WebMD News from Kaiser Health News

By Lisa Gillespie

Thu, Jun 12 2014

Here’s the next salvo in the back and forth between insurers and the drug industry over drug prices: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America are pushing the Department of Health and Human Services to take action to protect consumers who have gained insurance via the health law’s online marketplaces from high, out-of-pocket costs for specialty drugs.

Specialty drugs are most often prescribed for complex, chronic and often costly health conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and hepatitis C that require continuous monitoring by a health care provider.

At a June 11 press event, PhRMA, the drug industry’s trade association, and five patient advocacy groups, ranging from the Colon Cancer Alliance to the Immune Deficiency Foundation, pointed to an analysis by the consulting firm Avalere Health — commissioned by PhRMA — as reason for worry regarding these medicines.

The Avalere study examined 123 formularies from silver-level exchange plans — the benchmark plan that will generally pay 70 percent of covered medical expenses, leaving the consumer responsible for 30 percent – and found that a fifth of them required cost sharing of 40 percent or more for certain classes of specialty drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, bipolar disorder, cancer and other illnesses. Avalere also concluded that 60 percent of silver plan formularies placed all medications for multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, cancer and other illnesses in the plan’s highest formulary tier. That means patients who need these medicines would face the highest coinsurance percentage.

PhRMA President John Castellani called on HHS to limit insurers’ ability to structure drug coverage in a way that subjects patients with these types of chronic and severe illnesses from these type of high out-of-pocket costs.

“Placing all medicines in the highest cost-sharing tier makes the best treatments for patient outcomes and overall value the most expensive and undermines the goal of the ACA. Cost to the patient is determined by the insurance market,” Castellani said during the event.

Insurers are currently submitting exchange premium rates for 2015, and Castellani said HHS could take action before those rates are finalized.